Taylor's Vimptal Question
by shallowness
Summary: Where Brangelina, TomKat and Sethummer have led, Taylor would like to follow. And she needs Kaitlin’s advice. Feat. Taylor and Kaitlin, TaylorRyan. Set during late season 4. Metafic.


Taylor's Vimptal Question (aka Taylor's Very Important and Vital Question)

Author: shallowness

Rating: G. Characters/Pairing: Taylor, Kaitlin, (Taylor/Ryan).

Word count: 765. Spoilers: Set during late season 4. Genre: Metafic, humour.

_Summary: Where Brangelina, TomKat and Sethummer have led, Taylor would like to follow. And she needs Kaitlin's advice._

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, but I do own the errors.

Author's Notes: Thanks to taylortyme for betaing this.

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Taylor's Vimptal Question

(aka Taylor's Very Important and Vital Question)

by shallowness

Kaitlin was finishing off her Math homework at the breakfast bar. The last question was killing her and she frowned at it, as if that would rearrange the letters and numbers into something she understood. It should have been clear that this was not a good moment to break her concentration, but that was exactly what Taylor did, waving a perfectly manicured hand across Kaitlin's field of vision.

"What?" the Cooper girl demanded.

"Good morning, Kaitlin." Taylor punctuate her greeting with a smile. Because she didn't have to get up at crack of dawn o'clock, get up that early she did. Worse, she was perky as she did it. "Can I borrow your ears and grey matter for the last four and a half minutes before you need to leave for school? I have a question."

"Summer not available?" Kaitlin asked, implicitly giving in to the request by closing her file and stuffing it into the book bag she'd picked up at the clothes drive and customized. She'd get the work done somehow, if it came to the worst, she'd guess and double check it against the Ward twins' work.

"Alas, no. She's saving an endangered indigenous marine mammal. She left way before sunrise. And I hadn't thought of my question then, I was sleeping."

"You could call-"

"Her phone's switched off." Taylor sighed.

"This is probably unreasonable of me, but can't you wait for her to come back?" Kaitlin asked, but Taylor gave her a look that was meant to make her feel silly. Unfortunately, everyone who was older than Kaitlin that she'd ever known had used that look on her over her lifetime, and she'd learned to shrug it off. Kaitlin tried to get out of helping Taylor one last time. "Mom?"

"Wrong generation." Kaitlin waved for Taylor to ask her question, and started on a cereal bar hunt, the stickier and sugarier the better.

"When you think of Ryan and me-" Kaitlin rolled her eyes as she opened a cupboard door "-do you think of us as 'Taryan', 'Rylor' or something else?"

"'Something else' works for you, Taylor Townsend," Kaitlin muttered as she grasped her cereal bar, victorious.

"Because 'Rylor' makes me think of serial killers and 'Taryan', 'Taryan', 'Taryan'…Doesn't it sound weird to you?"

Instead of responding to this question, Kaitlin put her bar in one of her bag's side-pockets and zipped it up, but Taylor continued.

"Not to mention it reminds me of Taryn Baker, a little, and that reminds me of my mother, which is a total buzzkill. So, thoughts?" Taylor stopped talking, putting all her energy into expecting. She had the head-tilt down, the penetrating stare, the works.

"You have your unimpressed face on, Kaitlin. Are portmanteau names out?" She was so obviously disappointed that, despite herself, Kaitlin couldn't help responding. It was those big eyes - very subtle use of eyeliner, Kaitlin would have to ask for tips, sometime that was less morning.

"I'm a disaffected teenage girl, remember? This portwhatever thing-"

"You smoosh up a couple's name, à la Brangelina. Like Sethummer."

Kaitlin reopened the pocket and took out her cereal bar. Screw saving it for later.

"I know what it is, it's just the 'portmanteau' that threw me."

"So, any insights on the problem at hand?" Taylor asked her.

"If you don't like the others, how about 'Townwood'?" Kaitlin suggested, tearing the wrapper open.

"Combining our surnames and not our first names. That's…bold."

"Huh?" Kaitlin asked as she chewed.

"When you start playing with surnames, it suggests things," Taylor said vaguely. "Plus there's baggage with both our surnames."

Kaitlin hoisted her bag onto her shoulder.

"What things?" she asked.

"Well, marriage," Taylor was suddenly whispering, but in that intense Taylor way. Kaitlin somehow managed not to say what she thought, which was that when Ryan was god and ready to ask, probably when he was ancient and well into his twenties, Taylor would totally jump on the proposal. Kaitlin had seen the googly eyes.

But Kaitilin settled on saying, "You're the one who's looking for one word to describe you and Ryan as a couple, making out like you're a single entity, Taylor."

"You think I'm crazy," Taylor said.

"Most days, yes." Kaitlin said, taking the cheap shot. "Look, try the suggestions out on Ryan. Whatever he doesn't glower at, use that."

Taylor looked as if she was taking the suggestion seriously, which Kaitlin took as her cue to throw away the wrapper and start backing out on her way to Harbor - gateway to knowledge and wisdom, and, on days like this, sweet escape.

FIN

J'adore le feedback, including constructive criticism.


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